Why smart people in organizations too often mismanage Risks and make bad decisions?

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The revelations about the large sums of money (tens of millions of dollars) used liberally to finance Sun Ho’s failed attempt to breakthrough on the U.S. music scene and about her carefree, luxury lifestyle, have shocked many City Harvest Church members, the christians community at large and even the wider public. Reading through online forums, it is clear that many people felt that the amounts spent were extravagant and questioned what this “U.S. pop star adventure” had really got to do with the Christian evangelisation project it proclaimed to be. Continue reading →

After the announcement that Malaysian airline MH17 had been shot down over eastern Ukraine, Singapore Airlines was quick to post on their social media pages (Facebook and Twitter) a public statement addressed to their customers claiming that its flights “are not using the Ukrainian airspace”. Continue reading →

The IDA – Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore has finally recently concluded its investigations on the SingTel’s Internet Disruption incident. It has been already more than 6 months since on Wednesday 9th of October 2013, a fire broke out at SingTel’s Bukit Panjang Exchange facility damaging a number of internet cables and disrupting internet services across the island for more than a 1 week. At the time of this accident, the disruption created a massive shockwave of discontent among affected Internet users and even in part of the general public who then went on to vent their anger on social medias in a frenzy that lasted for weeks.

Every week Pastor Kong Hee and Pastor Tan Ye Peng both preach eloquently about good ethical principles solidly grounded in the Bible. Through many sermons, they have warned repeatedly the faithful crowd convincingly about the deadly power of sin and how easy it is to be tempted and fall on the wrong side. How could the same men of God, as the COC Report and the prosecution claim, be doing the contrary of what they preach? Continue reading →

Social scientists, psychologists and criminologists generally agree that human behavior is the product of a complex interaction among a wide range of factors. Some of those factors are personal to the individual and others are related to the environment in which the individual evolves. The Fraud Triangle Risk Assessment model that I have been using for this analysis of the CHC case categorize these factors into 3 groups: Pressure, Opportunity and Rationalization. Continue reading →